Explore how a digital-first campaign helped a mall with a smaller social following compete for school-holiday families.

At a glance

• 10.9 million people reached
• +3.4% year-on-year foot count during the campaign, equal to 13,341 additional visitors
• 2,459 visits to the activation
• About six times the competitor average for Facebook engagement

The brief

School holidays are a peak period for family activations, and Cresta Shopping Centre competes for the same families as five major regional and super-regional malls: Sandton City, Clearwater Mall, Ferndale on Republic, Fourways Mall and Rosebank Mall. Over a three-week holiday, families within a 17 km radius had no shortage of high-quality entertainment to choose from.

Cresta had a character appearance to build on, but faced two constraints. The campaign budget was limited at R387,492, and the centre’s social audience was smaller than its competitors’, averaging about 47,600 across networks against about 117,000 for the competitor average. The goal was to reach the right families cost-efficiently and turn that awareness into visits during the holiday window.

The idea

We took a digital-first approach built on four principles:

• Maximum reach: Digital advertising used for precise targeting.
• Cost efficiency: Spend focused on specific demographic data to eliminate wastage.
• Authenticity: Audience-aligned micro-influencers to build trust and drive word of mouth at scale.
• Measurability: Real-time monitoring to justify spend and adjust tactics.

What we did

Hyper-targeted social ads

Social ads focused on families within the catchment radius, so spend went to the people most likely to visit.

Micro-influencers

Micro-influencers posted authentic, relatable content about their experience at the character activations, which added credibility to the paid activity.

Digital channel support

Digital PR, digital family publications and websites extended the reach of the social and influencer work.

Daily optimisation

We adjusted creative and spend daily based on performance metrics, moving budget towards what was working.

Budget

Of the R387,492 campaign budget, R88,501 (23%) went to advertising. The approach leaned on efficient ad spend and cost-effective influencer partnerships.

Results

Reach and footfall

• 10.9 million people reached over the campaign.
• 2,459 visits to the activation.
• Foot count rose 3.4% year on year during the campaign period, equal to 13,341 additional visitors.

Engagement against competitors

• Cresta recorded 6,851 public engagements on Facebook, about six times the competitor average of 1,151.
• Per post, Cresta averaged 80.6 engagements against 42.0 for competitors, about 1.9 times as many.
• The Glo Rides and Smurfs Meet & Greet posts both ranked among the top three performing posts across Cresta and its competitors.

Audience growth

• Average audience growth across platforms was 1.38%, against 0.91% for competitors, from a smaller starting audience.

The outcome

Cresta started with a smaller audience and a smaller budget than the malls it was competing against. A focused, social-first approach, combining precision-targeted ads with authentic influencer content, still outperformed those competitors on Facebook engagement and grew its audience faster in percentage terms. Foot count rose during the campaign period. The campaign showed that a mall doesn’t need the biggest budget to make a character activation count.